Athens, National Archaeological Museum

Q637187

That was not very clever: visiting the National Archaeological Museum on the last day of a two week trip through northern and central Greece. Of course, it was a nice summary of everything we’ve seen, but I think it would have been better to start over here. Ever a teacher, I might have used the museum’s splendid collection of sculpture to explain to my companions the development of Greek art.

That’s what you’ll find on the first floor: lots of sculpture in a series of rooms surrounding a large hall, which is devoted to Mycenaean art. There, you will find the golden objects from Mycenae that Schliemann found. The sculpture rooms surround it. Your tour starts with some kouroi and you can easily follow the growth to greater accuracy in representing the human body. When you’ve finished about a third of your tour, the Greek sculptors have mastered every aspect of anatomy, and you will pass along many classical sculptures, including two dazzling copies of the Diadumenus and the Cnidian Aphrodite. After that, more sculpture: the fourth century, Hellenism, and finally the Roman age.

On the ground floor, there’s also a series of rooms that contain metal art. Here, you will see the Anticythera Mechanism, but also collections of arrowheads from Marathon and Thermopylae. The Egyptian part – also on the ground floor – is a bit odd in a museum dedicated to Greek art, but the collection is too small to be exposed in a museum of its own and too important to keep stored away. In the Hellenistic part of the Egyptian collection, I noticed a statue of Hephaestion that I had never seen before.

Upstairs, you will find a marvelous collection of pottery and some objects that don’t fit anywhere else, like the Lemnian inscription, written in a language related to Etruscan. Next to it is a section dedicated to the investigations at Santorini, where some splendid frescoes have been found.

Do not forget to visit the basement. There’s a little café with a garden, where you will see some of the sculptures found in the Anticythera wreck. They have a certain beauty because they are partly eroded. I found the giant Heracles absolutely fascinating.

This museum was visited in 1989, 1992, 2004, 2007, 2010.

76 pictures related to this museum

Piraeus, Head of a bearded god	Melos, Statue of Poseidon	Larisa, Tombstone of Polyxena	Athens, Pnyx, Lenormant Athena
Megiste, Bellerophon sarcophagus.	Eleusis, Relief of Demeter, Triptolemus, and Kore	Alexandria, Alexander the Great (part of a group with Hephaestion)	Chalcis-Vromousa, Head of a woman (Roman copy of a Greek original)
Athens, Kerameikos, Alexander with a Lion's Pelt	Athens, Stoa of Attalus, Attalus II Philadelphus	Argos, Heraion, Sima	Eleusis, Temple F, Cecrops and Herse
Mycene, Wall painting of a griffin with a warrior	Athens, Temple of Zeus, Portrait of Polemo of Laodicea	Sais, Temple of Neith, Statuette	Zeus and Ganymedes
Mycene, Wall painting ("La Parisienne")	Mycene, Boar's tusk helmet	Lebadeia, Relief of Trophonius	Athens, Kerameikos, Siren
Lead figurine of Athena	Piraeus, Julian the Apostate	Gomphoi, Relief of Odysseus and Amphicleia	Corinth, Plate with Demeter
Aegina, Temple of Apollo, Statue of a wounded warrior	Larisa, Tombstone of a man with a hat	Athens, Kerameikos, Base of the statue of a wrestler	Aegina, Ptolemy VI Philometor
Eretria, Lekythos (Bosanquet Painter)	Athens, Varvakeion Athena	Argos, Heraion, Amazonomachy	Piraeus, Theater, Head of Dionysus (classicizing)
Argos, Theater, Statue of Aphrodite	Athens, Kerameikos, Skull of Myrthis	Athens, Agora, Late Geometric pyxis	Mycene, House of the Warrior Krater, Warrior Krater
Athens, Statue of a Minotaur	Thebes, Head of Artemis	Pharsalus, Krater with a four-horse chariot	Argos, Heraion, West pediment, Palladion
Marathon, Arrowheads	Aegina, Tombstone of a young man, holding a bird	Piraeus, Votive stela of a reclining Dionysus	Thebes (?), Block statue of Prince Horwedja, governor and high priest in Heliopolis
Nysa, Bouleuterion, "Little Refugee"	Piraeus, Statue of a woman or Demeter	Eretria, Gymnasium, Statue of Cleonicus	Eleusis, Tombstone of a warrior
Athens, Kerameikos, Dipylon krater	The fight for the body of Patroclus.	Oropos, Aeolian-Ionic capital	Dodona, Figurine of Zeus Keraunos
Sparta, Statue of Julia Aquilia Severa, damaged after her death	Alexandria, Hephaestion (part of a group with Alexander)	Lycian portrait of Omphale	Thebes, Tombstone
Smyrna, Portrait of Caligula, reworked to resemble Titus	Eleusis, Relief of a drunk Heracles	Akrotiri, Building B, Room B1, Wall painting of antelopes	Epidauros, Temple of Artemis, Nike
Decree of Tefnakht	Megara, Statue of Dionysus	Megara, Statue of a Roman emperor (Trajan or Hadrian)	Thermopylae, Arrowheads
Argos, Relief of the Doryphorus of Polykleitos	Piraeus, Funerary stela of Damasistrate	Olympia, Head of the boxer Satyros	Hellenistic ruler
Artemisium, Statue of Zeus	Eucratides II of Bactria	Corinth, Relief of a hoplite	Akrotiri, Building B, Room B1, Wall painting of boxers
Argos, Heraion, West pediment, Head of Hera	Piraeus, Funerary stela with ball players	Mycene, Dagger with lion hunt	Lemnos, Tombstone of an Etruscan (?) warrior